"Provided she refuses him," the doctor said, gratefully. And bending down, he kissed me brotherly on the cheek, an honest and resounding smack; at which opportune moment Alicia walked in. Wholly unabashed, the doctor spoke pleasantly to Alicia, shook hands with me effusively, and went off whistling. All was right with the world. I'd refused him, you understand! Instead of being enraged and offended, I found myself giggling. That night, as Alicia didn't come in my room, I went into hers. "I know what you've come to tell me, Sophy dear," she said, directly. "I've seen it for some time. And I'm glad as glad--glad with all my heart, Sophy." Her voice was tenderness itself, her eyes melted. But the hand on my hand was cold. "I love you a great deal, Sophy," she whispered. "More than anybody else in the world, I think." "And was it because you loved me, dear girl, that you put the absurd notion of asking me to marry him into Doctor Geddes's head?" "Absurd notion?" repeated Alicia. "Absurd notion? But he asked you! Didn't he ask you?" "As to that, he told me I could marry him if I wanted to," I admitted. "Oh, Leetchy, it was funny, though! If you could have seen the poor dear, trying to martyr himself, just to oblige you--" "You _refused_ him?" breathlessly. "Of course. There wasn't anything to say but 'No.'" "But--I saw--" "You saw him kiss me on the cheek? Honey, that wasn't love: that was gratitude!" "I don't understand!" stammered Alicia, twisting her hands. "Why, you cared for him--I thought you cared." "Of course I care for him! But not like that! Good heavens, Alicia, however did you get such a notion? My dear, if I loved you less, or him more, I should never, never be able to forgive either of you. As it is, we'll forget it." At that Alicia began to cry. "Oh, what have I done?" she whimpered. "Sophy, you don't know--what I've done!" "You haven't done anything that can't be undone," said I, comfortably. "You and I, my dear, fell into a Hynds House maze. Now we're out of it!" And thinking she would be better by herself, I kissed her good night. Out of Hynds House maze, indeed! I had only to step back into my own room to have it again enmesh me. For on the prie-dieu that had once held Freeman Hynds's Bible and now held mine, was the lost diary. CHAPTER XIII FIRES OF YESTERDAY I wasn't frightened, of course. There isn't anything terrifying in finding a little old leather-covered book on a prie-dieu by one's bedside. But it was some minutes before I could induce myself to take up that yellowed old diary and examine it. It begins the year of Freeman's return from college, "a Finish'd Young Gentleman." He has refused to go abroad, considering that "our Young Gentlemen have enough Fripperies & Fopperies at Home without bringing worse Ones from Abroad." Brother Richard has been abroad more than once, and Freeman does not "find him Improv'd save in Outer Elegancies."